On 1/30/08, Daniel R. Tobias <dan(a)tobias.name> wrote:
I find it interesting how often this random selection
comes up with
combinations of band names, album titles, and images that give the
impression of having some sort of deep symbolic artistic
significance... makes one wonder how many of the real-world arts-and-
literature stuff, about which people write academic treatises
discussing what they represent, were really just born of random
thoughts of their artists. I remember struggling in English classes
in high school and college (where I was great at more "rational"
subjects like math and computer science) where the teachers kept
expecting me to understand all the symbolism that was supposedly
there in the books and stories we read (the rocking horse isn't just
a rocking horse... it represents the lost innocence of childhood!),
but how is anybody to know what symbolism was really intended and
what is a figment of the observer's imagination?
"A bunch of years from now, all these assholes are going to be writing
about all this shit I write, and I don't know where the fuck it comes
from and I don't know what the fuck it's about, and they're going to
write about what it's about."
--Bob Dylan, circa 1965, as quoted (by Joan Baez) in a 2005 documentary.